I'm going through my family's records (and I can't tell you how freaking thrilling it is to find old journal entries from my g-g-g-grandfather detailing his immigration to the US and then his emigration to Utah - JOURNALS ARE NEAT-O) and just found a very interesting and no doubt intentional series of blanks in the 1870 and 1880 Census records.

No wife listed officially, even though his first wife had been dutifully recorded (Emma, age --, born in England, keeping house) for the two censuses prior.

Then, the 1890 census show Emma again, but then there's this lady (Martha, 55) that turns up. And the next census (these are official census records, btw) have Emma missing. She's not dead at this time. This is also the period when Thomas went to jail for being a polygamist. They paid $100 to get him out, and he wrote that he served his time for The Lord. but when Utah was trying to pretend they weren't polygamous anymore (1890s) both wives are back on the census. (I need to borrow my dad's church ID # so I can check all of the SOOPER SEKRIT temple records for the evidence I need to show the polygamous marriage records, though.)

IDK, I just think it's interesting. I do love Emma's final dig at the situation in death, though.

Oh, you thought he would be in the middle, Martha? Oh, HALE nah. He done dragged my ass over from England and made me walk all the way from St. Louis to a hill in Utah valley, where we then had to turn around and build a house.

Missing from all of these records is his third living wife, and I only have journal entries for her. There were 9 other women married to him during the 1860s, making 12 spirit wives, total. Fun facts!

And fellow ExMos (or Mos) will get a kick out of this: I found his temple record of getting his "Second Calling." Meaning, no matter what, he gets his own planet. My religion passed out WORLDS, what did yours pass out, Watchtowers and WWJD bracelets? PFFT.

Tags:

Comments

Oh, I gotcha. So it's more a continuation of Baptism of the Dead than a whole 'nother thing.

Dude, Mormonism is FASCINATING.

Occasionally, I find myself wondering what happens in The Afterlife, if like, a Anglican gets baptized as a Mormon after death...does God get all cranky? "Make up your mind!" Do you get moved from Anglican heaven and put onto your planet? What if Anglicans are right, and then they get put in Hell or whatever for "changing" religions. How does that work?

Are You Actually

Reading this? I'm just curious. Because that's really detail-oriented of you. Feel free to stop reading. But you can see that there's more here, so are you going to keep reading? Really? That's pretty dedicated. I'm impressed. No, really. I'm not being sarcastic, why do you get like that? See, this is the problem I have with your mother - yes. YES. I'm going there. It's time we put all of our cards on the table.

I love you, why are you doing this? After all we've been through? You don't have to be like this. You know, still reading. You could be baking a pie. And then sharing it with me.